Chapter One: The Intruder

(1 October 2002)

“I was even more startled, because I realized that she was one of my former students. However, I was far more startledwhen I remembered that she had died a few weeks earlier.”​​​​​​​

We are bound together by invisible threads, and some of us must inevitably be drawn into the webs woven by fate and other people. All the while, some bizarre, mystical dance continues around us, yet we are unaware of the reality beyond the veil. We seek, but we do not find; we look, but we do not see; we listen, but we do not hear.

The fall semester had begun uneventfully enough, although I was becoming steadily more aware of a harsh reality. Each year my students seemed a little younger!

Thanks to a fluke, I was able to teach all my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This two-day work week was my reward for having gone so far above and beyond the call of duty during the preceding semester. When the chairman of the department had become incapacitated, I assumed many of her administrative responsibilities while maintaining a full course load, A grateful dean had let me reap the benefits: a modicum of additional pay and a two-day schedule in the fall.

That Tuesday evening, October 1st, I taught my seminar on the British novel and met with two students during my office hours after class. It was almost 11 pm by the time I opened the door of my townhouse, yet I still felt reasonably alert. And then…

Then, as I stepped across the threshold, I was startled to see a woman standing at the entrance to my kitchen.

I was even more startled, because I realized that she was one of my former students.

However, I was far more startled when I remembered that she had died a few weeks earlier.

For a moment, we just stared at one another. Finally, I regained the power of speech. “Miriam? Miriam Zonenshayn?” I asked timidly. I felt no fear and in fact seemed remarkably calm.

“Yes, Benjamin. Please do not be alarmed. I intend you no harm. In fact, I am in desperate need of your help.”

She was dressed casually: a blue T-shirt, black slacks, and sneakers. The weather was already getting somewhat brisk at night—I certainly needed my sweater—but a quick glance around the room revealed no sign of another garment.

I swallowed nervously. “Uh…excuse my callous observation, but unless all accounts were fabricated, you have been quite beyond my assistance for almost two months.”

She smiled. “That is certainly true in one sense. What you read was correct; I was killed in an automobile accident on August 7th, seven weeks and six days ago.”

I shrugged. “So, you expect me to believe that there really are ghosts?”

“I am not a ghost. I am an ibbur. Surely, the professor who taught The Dybbuk: Or Between Two Worldsis familiar with the term.”

I tried to remember. I was fairly sure I had taught the Ansky play during Miriam’s senior year, spring term of 1992. One of my best students ever, she graduated that semester, and her age had been listed as thirty-two in the obituary notice. I quickly considered the possibilities.

Of course, a home invasion was not out of the question, but Miriam would have been the least likely perpetrator, even if she were on thisside of the grass. The person in front of me certainly lookedlike her, and I had seen her as recently as late March, when she dropped by for a visit.

Miriam was not the sort of person who would have staged her own death. Moreover, I had sent a condolence card to her parents, and they had acknowledged the gesture with a handwritten note, thanking me for all the help I had given their daughter and mentioning how “she always thought the world of [me].”

Could this have been someone who looked exactly like her? If so, how much did this “double” know about the curricula on my syllabi?

“Ah, but you surely remember the Shakespearean passage I discussed the preceding term,” I challenged.

My visitor smiled. “You answer me with Horatio’s skepticism—‘So have I heard and do in part believe it’—do you not?”

She remembered! I had indeed taught Hamletin that Shakespeare seminar. “Well, if the Bard’s characters had trouble with a ghost, you will surely excuse me if I am baffled by your presence as an ibbur.”

I needed more proof—at least one more test. Miriam smiled, as though anticipating my next question.

“You might ask me something about Medea,unless you prefer to shoot into the 20th century and discuss Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I am sure you remember my research paper on the Euripides tragedy.”

That would suffice. This creature, whether living or dead, certainly knew the drama seminar I had taught during her last semester, and that final detail was convincing.

I nodded. “All right. You look like Miriam, and you probably remember our classes better than I do. You claim you are an ibbur, and I suppose I must believe you. Now, how can I be of help?”

And then it happened. She simply disappeared right in front of my eyes, yet even before I could register my surprise, I found my answer. It came by way of what I assumed was some sort of telepathic transmission, although in fact, I “heard” nothing whatsoever. Nevertheless, I became acutely aware of whyshe had come to me. It was as though the information had been in my subconscious mind all the time and had suddenly burst through to the conscious side.

“This is wild,” I stammered. “You need to complete the mission your uncle and you began?”

Just as suddenly as she had vanished, Miriam materialized in front of me again. “I know; it seems bizarre and irrational. However, it sounds as though I have your attention. Now, if you would really like to know why I’m here, perhaps I can explain. If you are willing to help me, that will be great. If not…well…that will be the end of it.”

I nodded. “Okay, although I’ve been standing since I crossed the threshold. Can we sit down at the table?” I asked, motioning to the dining area.

To my relief, she smiled. “Of course. The full story is rather long, but I can at least give you the broad picture.

And thus started the ibbur’s strange narrative.

[This is the second chapter of The Ibbur's Tale, a Jewish-paranormal novella involving possession (an ibbur), a curse, and a fair chunk of history (World War Two). Professor Benjamin Dinerstein encounters a home intruder, who happens to be one of his former students, and who also happens to have died a few weeks earlier. Miriam explains that she is an ibburwith one last task or mitzvah(good deed) to perform. Can Benjamin and Miriam unravel the mystery and save her family from a curse?

Because The Ibbur's Talehas been published on Kindle Unlimited, I shall be unable to add any more content. However, I hope readers will look for this novella on Amazon (digital and paperback) and Barnes and Noble (paperback only). Many thanks!]

Chapter Two: Miriam Presentsthe Dramatis Personae

“In the beginning, this one begat that one,and some spoke Yiddish.”

As soon as I was comfortably seated, Miriam began. “This will be difficult for you to process, but you must remember that what I convey is really my uncle’s story. I devoutly hope you will be able to listen to this bizarre tale with an open mind.”

“I can certainly try,” I replied.

“Indeed, but you always claimed you were a hardline skeptic. Okay. My Uncle Ike died earlier this year, in April,” she began.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I remember you wrote a very sensitive essay about him in one of your response papers.”

Miriam—or her image—bit her lip and hesitated. “He was quite a character: a wild man with a big, booming voice and stories to tell. Of course, he was also the loose cannon in our family of stuffed shirts. My parents, particularly my mother, didn’t want me to get too close to him. They gave no explanation, but from time to time they dropped hints along the lines of how he was ‘mixed up with some bad people,’ or words to that effect. Then, a few years ago, they denounced him as a ‘bad guy’ and cut him out of their lives entirely.”

“Why?”

“I never got all the details, but he had been involved with some rather shady individuals, as you will soon hear for yourself. About eight years ago, he was subpoenaed by a grand jury. His lawyer successfully argued that Ike was protected under the Fifth Amendment, but that was the last straw for my family. ‘The only people who invoke the Fifth are criminals,’ my mother shrieked hysterically. She also admonished me to stay away from him.”

I grinned. “…and I’ll guess that you ignored her warning.”

The ibburfrowned. “Of course, but let me continue. I wrote some very personal essays, but I never told you terribly much about my family, did I?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I should begin with a little background information. It goes back three generations, to a maternal great-grandmother and her sister. You will probably feel more comfortable if you take out pen and paper, though perhaps your laptop would provide even more assistance.

In a moment, my computer was opened to a new file.

"The story begins in 1914. My great-great-grandparents had five children: three sons and two daughters. They lived in a shtetl—a tiny Jewish village on the outer fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The sons had already emigrated to the United States, and by the spring of 1914 they had sent enough money to provide their sisters with passage on a steamship. My great-great-grandfather had made the journey earlier, but he preferred his life in the shtetland had returned. Both he and his wife were probably among the civilian casualties of the Great War that began just months later. One way or the other, no one ever heard from them after 1915.

“But back to my great-grandmother, Leah. She and her sister, Rose, arrived on Ellis Island in May 1914. They were eighteen and seventeen years old, respectively. Rose, while a year younger, had read far more than Leah and had seen much more of the world. In fact, my great-grandmother was evidently quite envious, because Leah had been sent off to far-away Krakow, to visit some or other distant mishpochaswhom no one seemed to know. She was supposed to stay with these relatives for three weeks, but she ended up staying for over six months—or so Leah had bitterly complained.

“Well, she put aside that disappointment rather quickly and married my great-grandfather in 1915. TanteRose—that’s what my grandmother, her children, and even her grandchildren called her—never married, for whatever reason.

“My grandmother, Sarah, was born in 1916. The following year, the United States entered World War One, and my great-grandfather joined the army. He survived, and my great-aunt Eva was born in 1921.

“Sarah married in 1936. Her husband, my grandfather David Mirkin, was a Polish Jew who had been fortunate enough to get out in 1932, a year before the USA imposed restrictive immigration quotas.

“Their first child, Uncle Ike, was born in 1938, and Uncle Hymie was born in 1941. My grandfather never talked about what he did during the war, but from what I understand, he served somewhere in the continental United States until he was mustered out in 1945. My mother was born the next year and married in 1969. I was born in 1970, and my twin siblings followed in 1973.”

By this point my eyes were beginning to glaze over, and I was grateful to have been typing notes onto the file. “I assume you won’t be testing me on this material,” I quipped.

The ibbursmiled. “No. In fact, the only names you need to remember are my great-great-aunt, TanteRose, Uncle Ike, and my own.”

“Okay; I am following you. What else do I need to know?”

“Just a couple of key points. First and foremost, Uncle Ike was definitely the black sheep of the family, as I mentioned earlier. Even before the incident with the grand jury, my mother despised him, and other relatives held him in contempt. Most of them were educated professionals; college grads at the very least, they had careers as accountants, lawyers, and teachers. Ike refused to attend college, and no one seemed to know how he earned money. He was apparently a ‘hustler’ and presumably knew ‘gangsters,’ but I was never told anything substantive about the nature of his ventures and never felt inclined to ask him.

“The marriages in this line of my family tree were successful and lasted till death did them part. My grandmother was happily married until her husband, who was ten years older, died in 1993. My parents are still together, as are Uncle Hymie and his wife and both of my siblings and theirs. Uncle Ike? He had three marriages, three divorces, rumors of numerous affairs and flings on the side, and no children.

“Before 1994, Uncle Ike was reluctantly tolerated but never fully welcome at family events—weddings, funerals, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations, and the like. However, I was the only one with whom he ever seemed comfortable, to my mother’s immense distress.”

“Um huh,” I mumbled.

"The other thing you must remember is that this branch of the family emigrated from eastern Europe. They were not particularly religious, but they felt strong ties to the Yiddish language and literature. My grandmother was born in this country, but Yiddish was her first language, and she still speaks it fluently. My grandfather also spoke Yiddish.

“My mother and Uncle Hymie have a moderate command of the mamaloshen[“mother tongue”], but Uncle Ike learned the language rather well and could even read the Forverts—the Yiddish paper also known as The Jewish Daily Forward.”

By this time, despite the coffee I had consumed earlier in the evening, I could not suppress my yawns. The ibburquickly noticed my fatigue and suggested that we adjourn until the next day.

“Uh…where will you sleep?” I inquired. “I can open up the couch and—”

“That will not be necessary,” Miriam replied with a smile. “I can make myself quite comfortable, I assure you.”

And with that comment, she disappeared!

“Fair enough,” I thought. “Until the morrow, then.”

I recently read Richard Zimler's marvelous novel, The Warsaw Anagrams, which (to the best of my knowledge) was the first work to introduce an ibburto the reading public. Shortly thereafter, I added a Sherlock Holmes tale involving this form of "possession" (cf., Sherlock Holmes and the Mysteries of the Chess World, Russell, 2022), and I have now added this novella to the canon.

A Slow Train to Budapestis the title of an unfinished novel left behind by my late mother, Ann Abelson, whose surname I used for this project. I have thus far been able to salvage only the first two segments of the narrative, both of which are available in digital format. In the 1970s, we learned that my mother’s aunt had had an illegitimate child, and some of that story is loosely parodied in the present work. [The child was adopted by a Jewish family and almost surely did not survive the Holocaust.]

Some relatives on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family remained in Dolhinov, which is now in Belarus. We know that the Nazis sometimes herded Jews (and others) into wooden buildings: schools, synagogues, and various municipal structures. The victims were then locked inside, and the edifices were put to the torch. It is likely that most of the kinsmen living in Dolhinov when the Wehrmachtinvaded suffered death in this fashion—a method deployed by HauptmannMüller et al. in our narrative.

I have thus been inspired by tales from the shtetlach, literature I have read, and family history. I hope my effort proves a worthy addition to the ibburlegend.